129 replies to this topic

[johnchm.10]

It also means that I have to redo all of my charts. Granted I was probably going to have to do thst anyway, and I know a bit about coding so I have a gffa campaign file modded to have the starting planet contain 1 of every unit to help speed that up. Still though...

[a.fake.name]

Why not take the easy way out, and just admit Chih was way ahead of the curve with his sub-mod.

Give better quality compliments, don't have the silly short ranges on non-heavy turbos, and the problem is largely solved.

The quality compliments is the key factor, however, because as was pointed out above many of the bigger ships point defense is having a compliment and escorting vessels to do the work.

But when the compliment is older vessels, that stacks the balance in favor of quickly researching snubcraft and just deploying them en-mase.

In the current build of PR, even with Chih's sub-mod, if I upgrade the skipray blastboat to the first version with the jammer (or a few upgrades past that) and deploy around 10 squads, those squads can defeat most any attack on hard.
I have a few more squads, or a half dozen carracks (especially if I upgrade a few times for better speed), then I can quite easily crush anything up to the size of a praetor or a bulwark.

Actually, that's part of why I've endorsed proton torpedoes being able to target snubcraft in the past, if the snubcraft mix in a dogfight and fire their torpedoes, they cannot get off the group volleys that overpower the auto-repair rate of a larget craft quite as easily, and they return to the realm of support strike craft, rather than craft that just curb stomp most capitals.

Another option would be to give all capitols designed in any sort of anti snubcraft escort role a point defense ability, just make a version of the ability for each craft/upgrade, and balance it by limiting the number of projectiles it can shoot down before the cooldown, and how long said cooldown period is.

But past that, I think as has been argued many times on the forum, ships lacking a hyperdrive should no longer be buildable and become compliment only vessels.
And yes, that WOULD pretty much affect the Empire rather than the Rebellion... because the Rebellion always had a history of relying on hyperdrive equipped snubcraft in lieu of capitol warships.

And as for the Empire, removing the TIE Fighter,Interceptor,Bomber, from the build list would clean up the menus quite a bit.
As for some of the other vessels like the IPV patrol craft, researching it would unlock the first version with a hyperdrive.

Another option would be to only allow hero squadrons to leave the system they were created in, turning squadrons into system defenses, furthering the defense offered by Golans.

In the case of hero squadrons without hyperdrives (181st, and most Imp hero squads), just require they have a hyperdrive equiped carrier in the stack to move.

 

That said, tactically, as it stands I have to advise against using hero squadrons in most cases, as they cannot be upgraded and will often be using out dated craft that will be slower and weaker.
 

 

[johnchm.10]

Fake, ease up a bit. You're coming across a bit strong. Nobody is ahead of any curve, chih decided to make some alterations and release them to the world. Granted those alterations were great and I would advocate at least some of them being added to the next release, pending the pr team asking and chih approving or denying of the use, should it be necessary, should they decide that they like the modifications and wish to use them, but at the end of the day, its the team's mod. If it bothers you that much, learn how to make the modifications yourself.

[a.fake.name]

Wasn't intending to come across so strongly, was just saying we've got a great example that has allready been playtested by many of us of some things that work quite well, so why not make use of what is in essence free testing of alternate balances.

[Aizen Teppa]

BTW. I meant to ask that earlier. Will we get also some basic info about ship history and service - instead of only dry math? I know it is not strictly necessary, but I like it. 

 

It gives more SW theme feel, that I'm not playing with just numbers like so: a+x*y/z=OMG!

[evilbobthebob]

We'd like it as well (see: land units) but there's so much information to fit in for space units, we simply don't have the space. You'd be losing something useful.

[johnchm.10]

If anything, info like this is best reserved for a manual. Which, barring the modifications needed to bring the manual current, is done.

Oh, almost forgot to ask. How are projectile weapons to be handled? To be more specific, are they still going to bypass shields, are concussion missiles still the only standard missile (the diamond boron and flechette missiles were more rarely used) that can go after fighters, do they still have light/medium/heavy variants, and is rate of fire going to be handled in the same way as 1.2?

Edited by johnchm.10, 01 July 2014 - 08:40 AM.

[a.fake.name]

We'd like it as well (see: land units) but there's so much information to fit in for space units, we simply don't have the space. You'd be losing something useful.

It's simple bob, use this formula:
quantity Light/Heavy/Advanced (dual/triple/quad/etc) weapontype

So instead of the "6 * turbolaser 8x240" listed in that odd choice of formulas, y'all can just call it: Six Heavy octuble turbolaser
Same information, but better conveys the information

[johnchm.10]

He did say it was a work in progress

[a.fake.name]

True, but considering it was at last partly based on some of my suggestions I figured I'd speed the process along.

[evilbobthebob]

We chose a more numerical representation of the weapons systems to replace the previous wordy style, which while being somewhat clearer in some ways missed out on a lot of information. This way you don't need to know what damage an octuple heavy turbolaser does- it's just a turbolaser that does 240 damage per shot and fires 8 shots at a time. Since range is proportional to power, you can also get information about relative weapons ranges simply by looking at the damage output. We've always preferred to give the player more information where possible. For a modern example in gaming, look at the Wargame series (Airland Battle, Red Dragon etc) and how they provide plenty of detail.

[a.fake.name]

I think the range proportional to power bit is flawed.
It makes the weaker ships even weaker, and the strong even stronger.

As long as you have heavy turbos, or turbo ions, and decent speed on a ship you can just stay out of range of most weapons on the map and keep killing stuff.

I point to Chih's sub-mod as a prime example of how to fix it.

[Aizen Teppa]

We'd like it as well (see: land units) but there's so much information to fit in for space units, we simply don't have the space. You'd be losing something useful.

Hmm... That is not stricly accurate if I may say so. It can be done, just need a bit of streamlining and content balancing. Techno-math data is all fine, but it's dry like reading manual for Large Hadron Collider... or a phone book - take your pick.   To prove the point decided to dust-off old, quirky and unfinished Legacy Mod:2nd imperial war. IMHO it contains fine example how much can be squeezed into limited window space.

 

There is one extreme of too much into (we don't want one of those ):

 

 

But there is many more of just right or very, very nice info box:

 

        

 

So it doesn't really matter, big, medium, small or totally tiny. Of course there is no need to remind everybody that this particular ship can be build only on Kuat, Mon Calamari, Fondor bla, bla. No need for Strong/Weak. Just merge nice (info) with beneficial (data). It doesn't have to be Encyclopedia Wookiepedia ^TM.

[johnchm.10]

Tell you what. When 1.3 comes out, I'll make a spreadsheet that tells you pretty much all you need to know about each ship and upgrade, with every bit of data such as ' armament 1 : energy : 6 Turbo lasers : octouple mount ( 8 shots per firing sequence) : 240 damage per shot : 8000 meter max effective range'. You can then print out the sheet or view it on a external device like a phone or tablet. I was going to make one anyway, so I'll just add some additional information to what I was going to add anyway

[a.fake.name]

The key word is brevity.
Infocards need to have as little text but maximum relevant information, while being focused on allowing the player to gland and make a decision as quickly as possible.

-Cost/time should be at the bottom.
-Volume/mass don't seem to serve a purpose, just stats for stats sake.
-Acceleration in gravities per second seems iffy, too likely to confuse laymen, personally I say have top speed and acceleration rate be listed together.
While I the gravaties per second accel stat, the fact is combined with a top speed stat it'd lend too much to confusion.
The old method was better.
-Manuverbility is fine, as is hyperdrive.
-For shielding, list max, as well as the regen rate per a fixed rate of time.
-hull is fine.
-Seems odd having weapons at the bottom. One of the more relevent stats, since that affects a great deal of how a ship matches up.

Now that said, all in all it's not too bad, however it's just that the new weapon method is overly complicated, especially to new users.
If the peoeple HERE complain about it, the average modDB user will be totally lost.
Guides are nice, but honestly do people read them anymore ?

Anyway, here's my proposed more concise way of the ISD-II infocard's weapon section:
Heavy Octuple turets: Six, turbolaser; two, turboion.
Triple turrets: Three, turbolaser.
Dual turrets: Two, turbolaser
Light Single turrets: 40, turbolaser; 20, turboion

Basically, break it down by mount type, heaviest to lightest, and use military type nomeclature since this is scifi military hardware.

Just for clarity, the template is like this:
Start with heavy/light indicators, if heavy or light mount.
Use the present (or new) indicator of how many barrels the turret has.
mount type,  turret/swivel/fixed.

From there, you just how many of that type the vessel has, and indicate laser/ion.

edit: oh, if I got the weapons wrong, keep in mind I just used the proposed infocard as a reference.
If I was unable to get it right taking my time typing it out, new users are fucked. (sorry if I come off as rude, I just prefer to be blunt and to the point.)

Edited by a.fake.name, 01 July 2014 - 08:45 PM.

[megabalta]

I've made a suggestion to use graphical file based info cards several months ago, but it was rejected by PR do to various reasons. Note that this particular card shows the old info system. I'm only showing it to you to spare you time thinking about similar solutions.

Edited by megabalta, 05 July 2014 - 09:15 AM.

[a.fake.name]

I approve.
The image infocards may or may not be a good idea for loading times (a pure text file may load faster with fewer issues, I dont know), for that looks great and the information is USEFUL and concise.

 

Prehaps release a sub-mod for those of us that'd prefer it ?

[megabalta]

I don't like the idea of submods. Mods in themselves are ever changing evolving things, a submod if not integrated to the main mod is an incompatible evolutionary sidebranch destined to oblivion. I don't like to do a sithload of work for something that I won't use later.

[a.fake.name]

I don't like the idea of submods. Mods in themselves are ever changing evolving things, a submod if not integrated to the main mod is an incompatible evolutionary sidebranch destined to oblivion. I don't like to do a sithload of work for something that I won't use later.

I have to disagree. Submods are, when done right, great testbeds of new ideas, and if templated and databased right can be updated relatively simply as needed.


That said, I'd much rather the PR team just copy the basic template of your infocard idea, you list much more of the relevant info than stock PR, and seeing the full compliment list is quite useful to know (even you're likely to end a battle before launching more than 3-4 random squadrons)

[johnchm.10]

Aside from the colored fonts, I'd like something of that nature